This application relates generally to communication systems, and, more particularly, to load balancing between mobility networks and Wifi networks.
Wireless communication systems provide wireless connectivity to user equipment (UE) using a network of interconnected access nodes and/or base stations. UEs may implement transceivers that include a transmitter for transmitting uplink signals towards the network (reverse link) and a receiver for receiving downlink signals transmitted by the network (forward link). Communication over the air interface between a UE and the access nodes or base stations take place according to various agreed-upon standards and/or protocols. For example, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP, 3GPP2) has specified a set of standards for a packet-switched wireless communication system referred to as Long Term Evolution (LTE). The LTE standards support access schemes including single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA). Multiple users can concurrently access the SC-FDMA network using different sets of non-overlapping Fourier-coefficients or sub-carriers. Wifi networks also allow electronic devices to exchange data and/or connect to the external networks (e.g., the Internet) wirelessly using radio waves. A Wi-Fi network may include any Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) products that are based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standards.
3GPP has defined an Access Network Discovery and Selection (ANDSF) function that allows mobile network operators to specify policies to UEs on the technology that the UEs should select for service. At the present time, the policy choice is principally between receiving service on the mobility network (e.g., 3GPP) or on one or more Wifi networks. The ANDSF function provides a mechanism for the mobile network operator to specify the conditions under which a UE should select a particular access. An example ANDSF function utilizes Open Mobile Alliance-Device Management (OMA-DM) as a transport mechanism for sending policies to a UE, and as a result, supports only a fairly static set of rules (e.g., policy rules changeable on the order of ˜30 min or greater).
ANDSF policies may be based on a combination of analytics information about the subscriber and analytics information about the network (hereinafter subscriber analytics and network analytics). Subscriber analytics may include Quality of Experience metrics, subscriber analysis metrics, wireless service metrics and the like. Quality of Experience (QoE) is a subjective measure of a subscriber's experience with a service. QoE attempts to measure metrics that a subscriber customer will directly perceive as a quality parameter. For example, QoE may indicate whether video stalled during a prior (e.g., last) subscriber Pay Per View (PPV) video session on Wifi, whether the subscriber has been complaining on an online social networking service and/or microblogging service (e.g., Twitter) about the operator Wifi service and/or has greater than a certain number of followers (e.g., >10K followers), and the like. Subscriber analysis metrics attempt to provide measures that indicate subscriber customer behaviors. For example, subscriber analysis may indicate whether a subscriber performed recent internet searches for an alternate mobile carrier, whether a subscriber is using network operator applications, whether a subscriber searches for a particular item above a threshold (e.g., chronically searches for on-line coupons/discounts), whether a subscriber is a big (i.e., above a threshold) purchaser of network operator sponsored content, subscriber loyalty, subscriber application tendencies (e.g., video? other particular service?), and the like. Wireless service metrics provide measures associated with wireless service usage of a subscriber. For example, wireless service metrics may include subscriber usage/quota information, subscriber calls to Customer Care (e.g., existence, numerosity, content, and the like), subscriber data rates experienced, and the like.
Network analytics provide measures associated with operation of the wireless network. For example, network analytics may include and indicate cell hardware load, signatures on known issues (e.g., Access Point Name (APN) configuration, virus, bad hardware, 3GPP air interface bearer plane loading, etc.), Denial of Service (DoS) Attack/s, adjacent cell air-interface bearer plane loading, unexplained performance degradation/s, per-cell video/audio quality metrics, core network signaling load surge/s, occurrence of major event/s in an area, network element outage/s, Wifi loading, and the like.
Such analytics information may be measured and/or collected from time-to-time in an on-going manner and thus be considered dynamic subscriber analytics and dynamic network analytics. As mentioned above, ANDSF policies may be established based on a combination of subscriber analytics information and the network analytics information. As but one example, a mobile network operator may wish to establish policies that more aggressively pushes to Wifi networks subscribers that stream large amounts of video, while preferentially keeping on the 3GPP network subscribers that have recently complained to customer care about Wifi performance.
In 3GPP R11, the result from considering relevant analytics information inputs to the ANDSF Server is an ANDSF policy which indicates a ranked list of access options. The ANDSF policy may be sent to the UE in the managed object via the S14 interface. The complexity associated with analytics based policy decisions made in the ANDSF server for the construction of the ANDSF policy is not visible to the UE.
3GPP and industry groups like 4G Americas have been looking at mechanisms to dynamically load balance between 3GPP and Wifi. A leading candidate method involves: broadcast/sending of 3GPP cell loading information to the UE; broadcast/sending of a threshold value/s for a signal strength parameter/s to the UE; broadcast/sending of a cell loading threshold to the UE; and the UE thereafter considering itself a candidate for Wifi off-load if its measured signal strength and the received loading cross the received threshold values.